It all happened in the 18th mile. Patrick Makau surged, scaring the daylights out of the pace-makers, who put their heads down to stay with him, and opening a sudden 10-meter break on Haile Gebrselassie. The legendary world record-holder tensed, slowed, swerved aside, and stepped off the course among astonished spectators, clutching his side. And in that moment history changed. Makau charged away, seizing the race, and the world record, and the kingdom of the marathon. And in that moment Gebrselassie lost all three.

“I felt better as the race went on, and from 32K I thought I could break the world record,” said Makau simply.

The clock confirmed that feeling. The pace had been under world-record schedule since 5K, and Makau, after making his break, had gone through 30K in a world record 1:27:38, beating Gebrselassie's time from last year.

He did not know that at the time, but he did know this was his first marathon for more than a year that had gone without problems. His best before today was 2:04:48 winning Rotterdam in April 2010, but here in Berlin a year ago, heavy rain concealed the epic quality of his winning 2:05:08. Then at the Virgin London Marathon in April 2011, he had some reactions to medication, and then took a mid-race fall.

“And even in London I was thinking about Berlin,” Makau said.

It was the confidence and control of Makau's race that were so impressive today, especially given the awe-inspiring presence of Gebrselassie. To begin with, the race looked much like the early miles of the ING New York City Marathon in 2010, with Gebrselassie apparently in charge and acting almost as a magnet to the five younger challengers who stayed with the world-record pace.

But Makau's view of those miles was different. To him, he was the man.

“This morning, I did not think about the world record, but I prayed to my God first of all to win the race,” he said. “From after halfway, I was using tactics, running zigzags, to use the energy of the other runners. Gebrselassie was always following me, so I went to the side of the road, then the other side, and he kept following. Then when I went to the other side again, he was tired.”

This was a new Makau, a man previously regarded as a follower.

“When we planned the race beforehand, we knew that Patrick is not usually very aggressive,” Gebrselassie's manager Jos Hermans told me. His runner did not meet the media after the race, although Hermans reported that Gebrselassie is feeling positive and in no way intending to retire. Hermans reported a “lung problem – he had difficulty breathing, so finally dropped out at 35K — exercise induced asthma,” though that does not exactly fit with the image I saw of Gebrselassie clutching his side at waist-level after he first stepped aside from Makau's unexpectedly fierce attack.

Hermans spoke with respect of Makau's training and half marathon credentials – he was twice second in the world championship, and is the sixth-fastest man in history, with 58:52. Unlike Gebrselassie, Makau, 26, had no significant track career, but emerged as a road runner.

“I needed to have money for my family,” he explained on Friday.

When I asked Hermans about the fast early pace, he confirmed that it was agreed between Gebrselassie and Makau that the pacers would aim for 62 at halfway to set up a world record conclusion.

“But it was not a perfect race, with the splits too uneven, sometimes too fast. So I think this world record might be broken after the Olympics,” Hermans said.

Makau had already said the same.

“I was a little bit slow in the last 10K. I think it is possible to run 2:02,” he said, a modest man who is far from overwhelmed by his new status.

His greatest pleasure seemed to be the thought of the reaction in Kenya.

“I am very happy, because all the guys in Kenya are watching the race, and everyone in Kenya will be very happy. The world record is very special to Kenya. We do not like to be beaten by the Ethiopians.”

His idol, he had told me some days ago, is Paul Tergat. Berlin is where Tergat set the marathon world record in 2003, the only previous time it has been held by a Kenyan, before the Gebrselassie era of the last four years.

So today was the day Patrick Makau not only displaced the legendary Ethiopian, but more than emulated his own greatest Kenyan hero.